Hey ya’ll thanks for the comments and likes while I’ve been away from the computer. I’ve been walking around feeling at turns depressed and rejuvenated and then depressed again, as is my wont (or whatever that phrase is) and I’ve been reading a lot. I will respond appropriately to your generous and always welcomed comments probably on Monday, as I’ve got a big Saturday with GF coming and then Sunday I’m going to the aquarium and some other crazy shit.

That said, I’ve got only a few minutes before the bus shows up (my bike is fucked for the moment) and I wanted to write some shit down that just happened.

I’ve been sitting inside reading some Richard Wolff interviews, he’s an economist, or at least the one I’ve been reading is, there are probably twelve prominent Richard Wolffs around, and dreading paying my rent today. Not that I don’t have the money for it, but it’s just that I go to pay my rent to my Italian landlord’s house and he usually asks me if I want to stay but I’m not sure if he’s just being polite or what I would do if I did stay and anyway I’m usually going somewhere, I mean people just don’t randomly pop up at each other’s houses and visit like they apparently used to do, or like I do with my grandmother whenever I’m in my hometown.

So I’ve been dreading it like I do with most social interactions even though I usually end up enjoying them. And so I finally decided to go over, leaving myself enough time before the bus to actually sit down and “visit” if he offered, much scared though I was by this prospect.

And his daughter answered the door, he was at his table with his wife and his granddaughters, it’s 2 PM and I guess they are eating lunch, or early dinner, if old people’s eating times are anything like my grandmother’s.

And his screen door was locked and the actual door was opened so I could see them in there and his daughter comes to the door and obviously checks out the envelope I’m holding with the rent check in it. I mean she looks at it like, oh that’s why you’re here, good, even though we’ve met before and it was friendly and probably like six people have already been to the door with the same kind of envelope. Or because of that. I don’t know but the bus is coming and I want to get to my observation.

And she opened the door and I thought she would invite me in but she did not, so I felt kind of like a vampire in True Blood, and I waved to Rudy far in the inside and yelled hello! And he yelled are you off to make a lot of money? Because I have my work uniform on. And I yelled what? And his daughter answered impatiently, like she was explaining the mumblings of an adolescent child of hers, he said are you going to make a lot of money? I answered that I was going to make a lot so I could pay him again next month haha blah blah well she said have a nice weekend in a very final way and that was that.

And it occured to me that even though he never talks to women, only to men, which maybe I’ll explain later, the women around him, in fact the people around him, because I have to include his realtor, seem to protect him from outsiders like myself, as if he were some pure innocent who could easily be taken advantage of.

Now I understand that they were having a family moment and I was intruding, but this kind of thing happened before. And the thing about it is that Rudy is a virulent (I don’t know what that means but it sounds right) man, an abrasive, passionate man, an irrascible motherfucker in the literal sense, who doesn’t take shit from anyone, why then is he being protected by these women? And that one man who is his realtor. And why does he accept their protection while also degrading and belittling them? Well, I haven’t the time to explain it all, but it was a very strange thing indeed to be pushed out like that and to look back over the experiences I’ve had with this man and his protectors.

The first time I was introduced to him I was told by the female introducer that he was a chauvenist, sexist, perverted man but at least he got things done when you asked him to. Her basis for these claims seemed to be legitamized throughout that meeting, as he made sexual jokes throughout, waved off any talk he didn’t agree with, and pretty much only talked to me, as opposed to the three women in the room.

At the same time, he seemed to have a good heart, even if he did believe that women and men aren’t equal or whatever an Italian man of his stature is predisposed by his culture to believe. Hm shit I don’t know. I know you don’t talk shit about an Italian man’s mother, that’s for sure, so as a culture they have a lot of respect for women I think. But then they do like raunchy jokes. Ah but fuck it I’m not trying to make a statement on Italian culture and women, or even my landlord’s attitude towards women, but really I’m wondering why the people in his life seem to need to protect him.

Everything is happy go lucky when it’s just me and him in the room, but if his daughter shows up or his shark realtor, well then shit gets real and these gatekeepers seek to shelter the innocent, naive, foolish man from those that would seek to take advantage of him. He’s a mason for Chrissake, could rip out your testicles with a flick of his wrist, he owns twelve properties in this neighborhood alone, he’s like an ancient rock that doesn’t bow to the wind, he’s passionate and loud and commanding. But I guess his downfall, the reason he needs to be guarded, is that he is a nice person.

Hm. Shit I don’t know. Time to go to work.